


Somewhere Beyond the Sea

by QianLan



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Letters, Light Angst, M/M, Prince Finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 07:58:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13359981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QianLan/pseuds/QianLan
Summary: Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a Prince.The Prince lived in the highest room of the tallest tower of a castle set high above the ocean, and at night, the wind would howl against his window like a mother mourning the loss of her only son.  And the Prince often found it difficult to sleep.So he would write.





	Somewhere Beyond the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little different...

 

 

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a Prince. 

 

When he had been a small child, the Prince was taken from his family and locked into a castle that sat high on a cliff next to the sea.  His captors tried to mold this Prince, to corrupt him and carve him to their will, but they could not, and as they years went on, they lost interest in their prize.  But they would not let him leave.

 

The castle was located on the northern shore of a rocky island, where the Prince’s captors were training an army to go raze and pillage more kingdoms, perhaps steal more young children for their ever-growing cause.

 

The Prince had free run of the island, but there was no escape, and the Prince had long given up his hopes of rescue.  So, the Prince wandered.  He watched.  He trained, and he read.  And that filled his days.

 

But the nights…

 

The nights were bitterly cold.  And lonely.  The Prince lived in the highest room of the tallest tower set high above the ocean, and at night, the wind would howl against his window like a mother mourning the loss of her only son.  And the Prince often found it difficult to sleep. 

 

So he would write.

 

At first, he simply wrote about his day or how the sky had looked in those few minutes before dawn or the sounds of the birds on the beaches far below him.  But over time, he began to write about his dreams—the life he imagined for himself outside of his captivity.  He wrote poetry and plays and short paragraphs pleading with the stars to hear his prayers, and for all the ways in which his life was bleak, his writing never was.

 

The Prince did not want his captors to read his writing and use it against him, so every night, when he could no longer keep his eyes open in the dim candlelight of his room, he would fold his paper and press a light kiss to it and throw it out the window to the sea.  Sometimes he would watch the paper bobbing up and down on the water, glowing in the moonlight, and wonder what the ocean thought of him, where it carried his words.  Other times, he yearned to follow those words, to crawl out the window and fling himself into the waves, but he never did.

 

And so it was that for many years this Prince followed this nightly ritual and tried not to think too hard of what became of the notes he threw to the ocean.  The ocean, he knew, was a fickle friend, and more likely than not, his letters ended up deep below her surface, sunk to the sandy depths well below her waves.

 

But then one day, as he was wandering the beach looking for shells, he came upon a piece of paper floating near the shore.  At first, the Prince believed that it was one of his own, but then he noticed that the paper had a greenish hue and a texture far different from the fine paper he used.  He stopped, considering the paper bobbing in the water, nearly afraid to reach for it, but something sent him to the edge of the water, and when he reached the paper, he gasped.  It was a letter addressed to him.

 

_Dearest Prince Finn,_

_Please excuse me for being so informal as to use your given name, but in all the time your letters have been washing up on my shore, you have never mentioned any name other than Finn._

_My name is Poe Dameron.  I am a Commander in the army of D’Qar._

_One year ago, almost to the very day, I was walking along the beach and I came across a piece of paper floating on the waves. On that paper was the most heartbreakingly beautiful poem I’ve ever read.  It spoke of grasses swaying in the breeze and a cold, lonely island in the middle of the sea and as I read the poem, I cried at the vibrancy of it.  It was like I was there!_

_The next day, I found myself drawn to the shore and again, I found a piece of paper on the waves.  This one described your daily rituals: your morning routine, your walks along the shore, your lonely nights.  And again, I felt as if I could nearly see it, reach out and touch the things you were describing._

_And so it went, every day, I would come down to the shore and every day, there would be a paper waiting for me.  It got so that the best part of my day was that sweet moment of anticipation, just before I would reach the crest of the last dune and could see the water—that hope for what you might send me that day. And every day, there has been something wonderful waiting for me!_

_Over this year, I feel that I’ve gotten to know you, and I will confess that I have never in my life met someone as kind-hearted or insightful as you are._

_But I’ve felt like a cad, reading all these wonderful thoughts and never responding, so I set out to answer your letters with some of my own._

_While I am a competent soldier and an excellent horseman, I am no poet, but I have made myself a promise to write to you every day for the next year in the hopes that you might one day respond._

_Perhaps it is a foolish dream to think a Prince such as yourself could have time for a lowly soldier, but nevertheless, I live in hope._

_Your most faithful servant,_

_Poe_

 

The Prince re-read the letter several times before he clutched the letter tightly to his chest with a sigh, hardly believing it was real.  He turned to the ocean, thanking her for bringing him word of a companion, someone to share his lonely nights with, someone to talk to, to tell his stories to.

 

He hadn’t realized he was crying until he started back towards the castle and felt the wind whip against his wet cheeks.  He resolved to respond to Commander Dameron that very night, and found himself—for the first time in his memory—anxious for the day to pass and the night to come.

 

However, the Prince was also struck with an acute fear of what his captors would do if they discovered the Commander’s letter, so he hid it within the folds of his robes, only taking it out once he was safely in his room.  The Prince then hid the precious letter behind a loose stone in the floor, hoping that his captors wouldn’t examine the mortar too closely.

 

That night, as the Prince wrote, he felt his pen hummed with a new energy and the words seemed to almost magically appear of their own accord.  The Prince eagerly threw the letter to the waves, wishing it godspeed to its destination and hoping against hope that this wasn’t some cruel trick of the ocean—to give him a confidant and friend only to take him away again.

 

**# # # #**

 

It had been thirty days since the Commander had started rising early to make his daily sojourn to the beach on the outskirts of D’Qar both to retrieve his daily letter but also to send one, and so far, none of the Prince’s writings indicated that he had received the Commander’s first letter yet.  The Commander worried about the distance between them, but also the fickle tempers of the ocean, hoping that she looked kindly upon him and his friend—for he did consider Prince Finn the most dearest of friends.

 

So it was with no little excitement that the Commander, after throwing his own letter into the waves, retrieved the Prince’s letter and discovered that it was addressed to him.

 

_Dear Commander Dameron,_

_Please dispatch with my title, which seems so ridiculous for one such as myself, stuck in captivity without a people or a place to rule over and no kingdom to rightfully call my own.  Call me Finn._

_I hope that, in turn, I may address you as Poe._

_I must say that I did not believe my eyes when I saw your letter floating on the waves this morning.  At first, I thought it was one of my own, but then, upon retrieving it, to discover that all of my little scribbles—the nonsense with which I’ve filled my nights for as long as I can remember—to discover that they have travelled across the sea and found you?  It made me profoundly happy.  Although I do believe you flatter me, sir.  My writing is adequate at best._

_Since we are now to be in communication with each other, I am going to endeavor to learn everything I can about you and to tell you anything you wish to know about me.  And so, I hope you will not think it impertinent of me if I ask a series of questions now._

_How old are you?_

_Where were you born?_

_What sort of place is D’Qar?_

_What do you do as the Commander of their army?_

_I could ask a thousand more, but I tell myself that we will have plenty of time—that is, after all, the one thing my captors never deny me._

_I would write more, but I am eager to send this along to you so that your reply may come that much faster._

_Your humble servant,_

_Finn_

 

The Commander stood, re-reading the letter several times as the sun rose over D’Qar.  He finally clutched the letter to his chest, vowing to go straight to the barracks to write a reply.  Thankfully, his rank accorded him some leeway and the soldiers would be able to start their morning exercises without him.

 

**# # # #**

 

And so it was for the next year, the two traded letters, and over the course of their writing, they fell very much in love.

 

But the Prince’s captors grew suspicious.  The Prince, always taciturn and stone-faced, would now smile through his day, laughing as he trundled down the path to the beach, playing with the animals that populated their rocky island fortress.

 

They searched and searched but could not find a reason for the Prince’s change until one night, their most trusted spy, the Lady Phasma, hid herself in the Prince’s tower and watched.  The Prince entered his room and removed one of the stones from the floor and placed something under it.  He then sat at his desk and wrote for more than an hour before folding his writing, like one might a letter, and throwing it out his bedroom window into the waiting sea.

 

The next day, the Lady told the Prince’s captors of the Prince’s strange behavior and they searched his room, uncovering the stone in the floor and discovering the Commander’s letters.

 

Fearing that the Prince was working with the army of D’Qar to plan an invasion of their tiny island kingdom, the captors devised a plan.  That night they would place the Prince in the dungeons far below the castle and then they would craft a letter to lure the Commander and his troops into a trap.

 

However, the Prince was cunning and wise, and he suspected something was wrong.  As he started back to the castle that day, the Commander’s newest letter resting near his heart, the Prince realized he would have to act quickly.  He scrambled to find something with which to write and finding nothing, he found a sharp blade and cut one of his fingers, quickly scribbling out a warning to the Commander on the Commander’s very letter in his own blood.  He ran back to the shore and hurled it into the waves, praying that it would reach his beloved before whatever evil plan his captors had devised took hold.

 

**# # # #**

 

A month later, the Commander frowned as he walked to the shore.  There wasn’t one letter, but two, waiting for him in the waves.  He knew something was wrong.

 

The first letter was flowery, full of the kinds of entreaties a lover would make, yet it felt hollow, lifeless, and the Commander knew right away that it wasn’t from his beloved. 

 

The second letter chilled him to the very bone: a warning, written in blood, that those who had taken his Prince captive were planning to strike out against D’Qar.

 

The Commander realized that whoever held his Prince had discovered their secret correspondence and had most likely written the first letter in an attempt to lure him into a trap.  Unsure of how to act, the Commander ran back to the barracks, hoping for an audience with the Queen’s most trusted advisor—a young woman with magical powers who the common folk simply called Rey.

 

**# # # #**

 

The Prince had no idea how long he’d been trapped in the dungeons, but with each day, he grew more and more despondent.  The wizard, the one they called Ren, would sometimes visit, ranting about traitors and demanding to know how the Prince had charmed the ocean into doing his bidding.  The Prince remained silent.

 

His captors withheld food and drink, hoping that would loosen his tongue, but the Prince remained silent.

 

They beat him, cracking the whip and cackling as it broke his flesh, and still, he remained silent.

 

They whispered lies into his ear, told him dreadful things about his Commander, but he remained ever silent.

 

Then, one day, without explanation, his captors released him from the dungeon.  They treated his wounds, fed him, and took him back to his room in the tower.  As they were leaving, the one they called Hux threw a mound of letters at the Prince’s feet with a sneer.  “Did you really think he’d come for you,” he asked.  “Did you really think he cared?”

 

His captors laughed and left him there, bewildered and hurt.

 

The Prince bent down to retrieve one of the letters.  In it, his Commander explained that the forces of D’Qar had no way to find the Prince and that they couldn’t spare any resources to look for him.  While the Prince thought it a bit curt, it was in the Commander’s hand and the signature looked real.  This was no trick.

 

The Prince picked up another letter, one begging for a response.

 

He picked up another, pleading for word from the Prince.

 

He quickly picked up another where the Commander explained that he’d met another solider from the kingdom of Jakku.

 

The Prince grabbed another letter and another and slowly, he pieced together a horrible story.  In the absence of the Prince’s letters, the Commander had fallen in love with someone new.  He was to be wed in a week’s time and then, he would leave D’Qar for Jakku, a kingdom far away from the sea.

 

The Prince wept.

 

And for the first time in many years, he felt untethered, adrift, hopeless.

 

Since he could remember, he had been a prisoner, ripped from his family and his home.  His captors had tried to break his will time and again, but he had resisted, and while he wouldn’t have called his life happy, it had been largely free of pain.

 

But now?

 

Now, it felt as if the Prince’s heart had been ripped out.  He had allowed himself to imagine something beyond the confines of the rocky shores of the island.  He had allowed himself to dream of a time when he could meet his Commander and share a life with him.

 

He had allowed himself to hope.

 

And now, that was gone.

 

The Prince raised his head, looking around his room and realizing that while he was reading the Commander’s letters, it had grown late.  He could hear the waves pounding against the cliffs far below his room, the wind howling against the side of the castle, and he made a choice.

 

He stripped himself of his clothing and went to his window, staring down into the inky mess below, and he called out to the ocean, “Mistress Sea!  I am Prince Finn and I have been a captive here for twenty years, and in that time, you have been kind to me.  I have never asked a favor of you until tonight.  If you have ever looked upon me kindly, I ask that you deliver me away from here.  Take me somewhere far away, where I may start a new life.  Or, if you are fickle, drown me.  But I pray, do it quick, if that is your whim.”

 

He waited for no response but jumped from his window into the icy depths below.

 

**# # # #**

 

The Commander paced the deck of the largest of D’Qar’s warships, praying that the Sorceress Rey’s plan had worked and that his Prince’s captors were convinced of D’Qar’s disinterest.  The Sorceress had divined that the island they claimed as their own was an ancient place known as Ahch-To.  None but the oldest seafarers knew of the island, and the course was treacherous, but the Commander had petitioned his Queen anyway, and he was surprised when she readily agreed to the campaign.

 

They were less than a day away from the island when one of the men in the crow’s nest called out.  There was something floating in the waves just beyond their furthest ship.  As they hauled it aboard, the crew were surprised to discover it was a body.  The body of a young man—by some miracle still alive, but in a deep sleep.  They placed him in the Captain’s chambers and sent for the Sorceress to try to revive him.

 

While she worked, the forces of D’Qar grew nearer and nearer to the deadly island of Ahch-To.  The Queen’s forces were formidable, but they had all heard the rumors of masked soldiers raiding the coasts of nearby kingdoms: deadly forces known as Stormtroopers, who pillaged and plundered until there was nothing left.

 

As the castle came into sight, they prepared their weapons, and as the sun rose overhead, the battle began…

 

**# # # #**

 

The Prince jerked awake and was surprised to find himself in a richly-decorated room with a beautiful young woman hovering over him.  As the room swayed, he realized that he was on a ship.  The woman smiled down at him.  And then, there was a tremendous boom and the ship shook violently.

 

Fear spiked in the Prince’s eye. 

 

“Don’t worry,” said the woman.  “We’ll be safe.  I’ve read the stones and we’re destined to win this battle.”

 

“Battle,” the Prince croaked.

 

She nodded.  “We’ve come to take Ahch-To and hopefully rescue a Prince.”

 

The Prince bolted up.  “What?”

 

The woman put a hand on his arm, steadying him.  “We’re here to take the island and free a Prince.”

 

“Poe,” the Prince said, rising to his feet.

 

“Is part of the fight,” the woman said.

 

“But…”

 

She gently forced the Prince back to his bed.  “He and I came up with a plan to trick your captors in order to launch a full attack.”

 

The Prince studied the woman, wondering how she could’ve possibly known who he was.

 

She smiled.  “Rest and I’ll explain everything after the battle.”

 

“But,” he started to protest.

 

“The ocean was kind to you, but that doesn’t mean your body doesn’t need to heal.”  With that she muttered an incantation and the Prince fell into a deep sleep.

 

**# # # #**

 

It took two long days, but eventually, the victory belonged to D’Qar.

 

The Commander led the raid of the castle and when it was secure, he ran to the highest room in the tallest tower, hoping that there, he would find his Prince. 

 

Instead, he found an empty room.

 

He knew, intuitively, that it was the room of the Prince, but the Prince was gone.  “Search the castle,” he called out to his second and he could hear his soldiers scrambling away to try to find his beloved. 

 

Meanwhile, he searched the room, shuddering as he spied the pile of letters intended for his Prince’s captors—the lies he’d had to tell to keep his love safe.  A chill ran over him as he walked to the window and looked out at the sea, and he tried to imagine how such a warm and loving man as his Finn could’ve grown up in such cold surroundings.

 

He walked to a small desk, his hands running across the well-worn wood, and tried to imagine his Prince sitting there, writing, night after night.  He closed his eyes and sent a prayer of thanks to the waters below that they’d deemed him worthy to receive the Prince’s letters.

 

Several hours later, as the Commander stood at the gates of the castle, his second approached him with sad eyes. “Sir,” she said, “we’ve searched the castle from top to bottom and there is no sign of him.”

 

The Commander hoped that his love had escaped to a remote part of the island, perhaps to avoid the battle, but something told him that was not what had happened.

 

His second continued, “There were reports that someone threw themselves from a tower window three nights ago.”

 

The Commander stopped breathing.  His whole world shattered as he imagined his Prince faced with letter after letter full of lies, thinking that no one was coming to his aid.  The Commander began running away from the castle towards the shoreline, not knowing what he intended to do, but feeling the pull of the sea all the same.

 

He stood mute before the ocean, wishing he knew how to ask it about the Prince’s fate, wondering if he should jump in and follow his beloved wherever he may have gone.

 

A voice startled him and he turned to see the Sorceress walking towards him, a young man he didn’t recognize beside her.  As she approached, the Commander wiped his eyes and turned, bowing.  “Milady.”

 

She smiled.  “Commander, this is the young man we pulled from the ocean just before the battle.”

 

The Commander smiled.  He was a handsome man with a kind face.  “He must have quite a story to tell.”

 

“That he does,” the Sorceress said.  “And I think you might like to hear it.”  She nodded to them both and wandered back along the beach towards the path to the castle.

 

“You mustn’t be offended by Rey,” the Commander said.  “She’s odd, but very wise and very powerful.”

 

The young man nodded, studying the solider.  He found he liked the look of this Commander immensely.

 

The Commander laughed.  “You’re not very talkative, are you?”

 

“I’m not quite sure what to say,” the young man said.

 

The Commander turned back to the ocean.  “Then, tell me, why do you think it is that the ocean took pity on you, put you in the path of our ships.”  _Would she do the same for me_ , the Commander wondered.

 

The young man thought.  “The ocean and I have been friends for a very long time, and I will never know why she has shown me favor, but she has, for many years.”

 

“How so?”

 

The young man smiled and the Commander found himself dazzled by it.  “Would you like to hear a story?”

 

The Commander nodded.

 

“Once upon a time, there lived a Prince.  When he was a small child, the Prince was taken from his family and locked into a castle that sat high on a cliff next to the sea…”

 

**# # # #**

 

The Commander hadn’t moved during the telling of the story, not even to wipe away the tears that fell down his cheeks.  When it was over, he continued to stare out at the ocean, afraid that if he turned to look at his Prince, the young man would disappear into the foam.

 

The Prince stepped closer to him until the Commander could feel their shoulders brush.  “You have nothing to say, sir?”

 

The Commander shook his head.

 

“Perhaps you don’t like my story?”

 

“No,” the Commander whispered, his voice rough, “I like it very much.”

 

“Then?”

 

“I wonder what happens next,” the Commander said, still refusing to take his eyes from the waves.

 

“I don’t know what happens next,” the Prince said. 

 

“You don’t?”

 

“No,” the Prince said, “I believe that is for the two of us to decide together.”  He reached over and took the Commander’s hand.

 

The Commander hiccupped back a sob and the Prince could stand it no longer.  “No,” he murmured.  “Why are you sad,” the Prince asked, moving to face his Commander.

 

The Commander finally wiped his eyes, shaking his head.  “I’m not sad.”  He turned, staring into the eyes of the man he loved.  “I’m overwhelmed with joy.”

 

The Prince reached up, wiping a stray tear off the Commander’s cheek.  He smiled.  “I will admit that I lost faith for a moment and did something rash, but the ocean has always looked after me.”

 

“And me,” the Commander whispered.

 

The Prince chuckled, “Aye, and you.”  His hand remained, cupping the Commander’s cheek.  “And in my darkest hour, she delivered me to you and led you safely here so that your armies could insure that these villains never steal another child, never force another to endure what I have endured.”

 

The Commander closed his eyes, lest he begin to cry again.  “How are you so good?  How did this place not turn you and twist you into something terrible?”

 

The Prince said, “I had the ocean and then I had you, but more than that, I held onto the belief that to give in to despair and hatred would serve no one’s cause but my captors.”

 

The Commander opened his eyes and smiled, his eyes crinkling.  He reached up, cupping the Prince’s cheek. 

 

The two stared into each other’s eyes, oblivious to all of the sounds around them, save the crashing of the waves.  And as they leaned in to press their lips together in a kiss, the ocean sighed, sending up a happy spray of foam in the hopes that her two charges would never have need of her help again.

 

 

And they didn’t, for the Prince and his Commander lived happily ever after.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> **Thank you for reading!**
> 
>  
> 
> As always, I appreciate all kudos and comments.


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